The effect of micronutrient on thyroid cancer risk: a Mendelian randomization study

Jiali Shen; Hong Zhang; Hongzhan Jiang; Huihui Lin; Jiaxi He; Siyue Fan; Doudou Yu; Liping Yang; Hui Tang; Ende Lin; Lianghui Li; Lijuan Chen

doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1331172

The effect of micronutrient on thyroid cancer risk: a Mendelian randomization study

Front Nutr. 2024 Mar 1:11:1331172. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1331172. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jiali Shen^#¹, Hong Zhang^#², Hongzhan Jiang¹, Huihui Lin¹, Jiaxi He³, Siyue Fan¹, Doudou Yu¹, Liping Yang¹, Hui Tang⁴, Ende Lin⁵, Lianghui Li⁵, Lijuan Chen⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Nursing, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, China.
² School of Clinical Medicine, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China.
³ School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
⁴ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Zhongshan Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen, China.
⁵ Department of General Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: The effect of micronutrients on thyroid cancer has been studied in observational studies, however, the cause of relationships has not yet been determined. Thyroid cancer was the subject of a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis of micronutrients. Aimed to determine whether micronutrient intake has a causal impact on the chance of developing thyroid cancer.

Methods: We used a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis with two samples. Our circulation levels of Cu, Ir, Zn, Ca, VD, and VC were reflected by genetic variations reported from GWAS in individuals of European ancestry. For the GWAS outcome of thyroid cancer. Sensitivity studies that included MR-Egger, weighted median/mode tests, and a more open selection of variations at a genome-wide sub-significant threshold were added to our inverse-variance weighted (IVW) MR study.

Results: Using the IVW approach, we did not find evidence that any of the micronutrients to thyroid cancer (Cu: odds ratio [OR = 0.88, p = 0.41]; Zn: odds ratio [OR = 0.87, p = 0.40]; Ir: odds ratio [OR = 1.18, p = 0.39]; Ca: odds ratio [OR = 1.12, p = 0.43]; VC: odds ratio [OR = 0.95, p = 0.22]; VD: odds ratio [OR = 0.89, p = 0.04]). The heterogeneity (p > 0.05) and pleiotropy (p > 0.05) testing provided confirmatory evidence for the validity of our MR estimates.

Conclusion: This study does not provide evidence that supplementation with micronutrients including Cu, Ir, Zn, Ca, VD, and VC can prevent thyroid cancer.

Keywords: Mendelian randomization; calcium; copper; iron; thyroid cancer; vitamin C; vitamin D; zinc.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the nursing research project of Zhongshan Hospital affiliated with Xiamen University (2023zsyyhlky-002).